Knight of the Wasteland
by Inquisitor Halbread
Summary: At a young age, Jaune Arc was thrown into a world of survival and ruins. After surviving, Jaune Arc discovers that being a hero in the Wasteland is good training for being a hero in Remnant.
1. Prologue

**Prologue**

Jaune had always thought that he was a clever kid. He knew the value of a good nights sleep, even if he thought he went to bed too early. He knew that when his parents told him something that he should probably listen to them, except when they told him his comic books were a waste of time. Jaune Arc thought he was pretty sensible for a 14 year old boy.

But no matter how sensible he thought he was, he knew he messed up.

Growing up as the sole boy among seven sisters wasn't easy, but somehow he managed to navigate the whims and tempers of the girls of various ages around him and make it to the ripe old age of fourteen. He thought he was ready to take on the world, which definitely showed when he confronted one of his older sisters.

Chrysta Arc was in her third year at Beacon Academy, her long, gold hair was frazzled and she stifled back a yawn after being woken up early by very insistent knocking on her door, on one of her few days of her holiday she spent with her family.

"Chrysta, I want to become a Huntsman!" forcefully said a very determined Jaune Arc.  
"...what?" blearily said Chrysta, blinking sleepily.  
"I want to become a Huntsman." repeated Jaune  
Chrysta blinked again and finally let out a long yawn. After she finished, she smiled, eyes closed.

"That's nice, Jaune." she said softly and proceeded to pull the door closed.  
"Wait, please" Jaune held the door open with his hand.  
"What, Jaune?" Chrysta snapped "It's too early in the morning for you to wake me up to declare your life choices."

"...It's not morning yet..." he replied sheepishly  
"Jauuuune..."  
"I need your help!" were the words that suddenly blurted out of Jaune's mouth.  
"With what?" asked the more irate but also more aware blond sister.  
"I need you to train me..." Jaune mumbled softly  
"Sorry, what was that?"

"I need you to train me!" he repeated a lot louder than he intended to. He had quickly felt a wave of embarrassment envelop him for his outburst. _How can she take me seriously if i don't act like a grown up!_.  
He was thrown out of his inner turmoil when his sister finally replied.  
"Why me? Why not Mom and Dad? I'm sure they'd be glad you are getting into the family business."

Jaune was silent as he put his thoughts together.  
"They offered to train me when i was twelve..."  
"Yeah I know, So why now and not then?" Chrysta asked pointedly, her eyes narrowing slightly.  
"It's because it looked hard!" Jaune complained, sounding closer to a whine. "All you did was run and jump, and get hit by Mom and Dad a lot with that wooden sword, and all those exercises and..."

"Okay. Firstly, that was called sparring and i had just started. No one could be that good when they start off training." Chrysta quickly interrupted. "Secondly, that doesn't answer my question. Why now?"

Jaune looked to the floor. "It's because I know it is worth it."

A glance upward showed the face of his sister, still framed by messy hair, showing a surprised expression. Jaune took this as an opportunity to continue.  
"I know it is hard, I know all the stuff I would have to do, but it is worth it if I can be able to save people after training so hard. Helping people who need it is the best thing i can do. I want to do that and i think i understand how much hard work that would be. But i don't think _they_ would understand."

The room was silent for a while after that. Jaune looked at his sister's face and saw that she was smiling. He noticed that the smile wasn't bright like when her friends came over or when he did something she considered cute, much to his embarrassment. Instead it looked, at least to him, a bit sad.

"Look, Jaune. If i say I'll help, will you let me sleep?"

Jaune's face brightened near instantly at that. She was really considering helping him become a Hunter!  
"Yes, of course big sis!"

He quickly left the older Arc alone before she could say anything different, even though he was moving at near sprint he still thought he heard something like tired cursing. At least he thought it was cursing, he wasn't allowed to use curse words.

After that late night meeting, he had waited patiently for his sister to help him train and as the days passed his anticipation only grew. He kept imagining all the people he was going to save and all the beasts he was going to slay and even though the training would be harsh and grueling, in his 14 year old mind, it only got more worth it.

Jaune would have liked to say he was patient in waiting for this chance, but unfortunately for his sister Chrysta he couldn't help asking a little. Okay, he asked A LOT.

Eventually, his 'patience' would pay off after three days when his sister told him that her team had been asked to clear a small pack of Beowolves from nearby someone's farm and she wanted to bring him along to show him firsthand on how a hunter does their thing.

Jaune was so excited in that moment he thought his heart would explode out of his chest. Having quickly agreed to the outing he rushed off to prepare him self. He had gotten his training armor, that he made himself, his favorite hoodie, just slightly too big for him, and finally Crocea Mors, the sword that belonged to his Great Grandfather and was gifted to him by his father, passed down every male in the Arc line from way back even before his Grandfather. " Son, even if you aren't going to be a hunter you will still get this sword. Even if you never use it and it ends up above the fireplace until your son gets it." his Dad had said in one of the most serious moments he has had with his dad. "On the bright side, it makes a most intimidating paperweight." Dad had joked, his almost trademark smile returning.

Jaune however wasn't going to waste it by putting such a fine weapon on his papers and books. He was going to use Crocea Mors for it's intended purpose, to save people. Even though this was his first time using it and it was a bit bigger than it should be for his size, he would make his ancestors proud and he would grow up.

Yes, when he grows big and strong he would protect people, and he would be a hero.

After getting ready, he followed his sister to where her team was waiting. From there they took a car to the farm where the Beowolves were lurking. During the trip Jaune couldn't stop nervously glancing at Chrysta and her team, in the back of the car each did their own thing, from sitting with their eyes closed to humming a song he didn't know. His nervousness had stopped him from focusing on what they looked like or even what their weapons were as all his thoughts were on hoping he wasn't going to mess up and convince his sister not to train him. _No_ he determined, _today i will prove that this is what i was meant to do_. This determination didn't help as much as he hoped.

The rest of the trip was a blur to him thanks to his whirl of thoughts but he did remember that his sister, now clad in her armor and trench coat, had put her hand on his shoulder comfortingly and smiled, saying it would be all OK.

After the car had reached it's destination, Jaune had kept thinking over his inner fears and hopes, missing any conversation around him. When he finally became aware of the world again, he saw they were about to enter the forest to begin the hunt.

It had gone well... At first

There were too many Beowolves, it would be more chaotic and intense than his sister said it would be.

Now here he was, separated from Chrysta and her team by a horde of Grimm, Crocea Mors in his right and the shield sheath in his left while having no idea what he was doing and a Beowolf in front him, covered in bone spikes and armour, taking it's sweet time in attacking.

Jaune knew it was savoring his fear, the fear that threatened to paralyse him, but he would not freeze up now. He knew that would mean he would die. Jaune wasn't going to let himself die, not when there were people he could save later in life. If he died today, his family, Chrysta especially, would be hurt. All the people he could have saved would be hurt and Jaune himself would be hurt as well. He really wouldn't want that to happen.

So as Jaune prepared to face what came, he let out one word softly. The only curse word he had learned.

"Shit"

It seemed appropriate because Jaune Arc, 14 year old only son of the current Arc generation, knew he had messed up.

-

Chrysta Arc knew she had messed up.

This trip was meant to be an easy way to show Jaune what it meant to be a hunter, the sorts of things you would have to face and the fear that came with such a life. Honestly part of her hoped that this little outing would discourage Jaune from being a Hunter. No sister wanted to see their little brother going to a career where you might die at any time and a childish part of her hoped that taking him along with her for this small clearing mission would push some sense into the boy before she started training him.

She didn't really want to train him but she had technically given her word that night.

And Arcs always keep their word.

Her older sister had done this for her when she was a kid and it had been approved by Mom and Dad afterwards. Chrysta had the feeling that if she had started training with her parents first, they would have done something similar to her given how strict they were training her and her sisters. The other sisters might have grown to dislike their parents, some even hated Mom, but Chrysta understood why they ran trained them so unforgivingly. Grimm would take advantage of any opening presented to them and were brutal, thus the training had to be as well. The fact that none of the Arc siblings had died over the years spoke greatly of the effectiveness of the training.

It seemed like that might change today. _I'm not going to let that happen_ she thought.

All around her was pandemonium. Surrounded by Beowolves meant that all of the team metaphorically had their hands full. Closest to her was Ingrid, her wolf ears laid back indicating her intense focus, her SMGs firing on full auto, making full use of her semblance to fire eight of the death dealers at the Grimm one in each hand, with six in her semblances projections and two in her normal hands. Jack was a little further away, wolf ears atop his head mirroring his sister's, Using his Gravity sword to cut down swaths of the hound shaped Grimm where the gravity generators increased the force of each swing, making it trivially easy. Lastly was Crimson and while she couldn't see him, it was easy enough to guess where he was by the distinctive explosions and flying Grimm, most likely from his Rocket Launcher staff. Further away, out of reach but still in sight, was Jaune and he was facing down a Beowolf Alpha in one of the bravest/stupidest things she has seen him do.

A Beowolf lunging at her broke her small train of thought. She dodged it, moving only slightly past it. The moment It landed she spun, slightly noticing her long braided ponytail following her, placed one of her Dual custom Magnums under it's jaw and fired. A large bang echoed with the pressing of the trigger and the bone mask of the Grimm burst outwards as the high caliber Dust round broke through. Almost immediately after the Beowolf started it's fall, Chrysta turned her attention to Jaune and his opponent again.

"Im going to get Jaune!" she screamed to her team. She recieved several grunts of acknowledgement from her team and they shifted focus to killing the Grimm between her and Jaune. It took several moments for her team to thin out the Grimm enough so that she could break through and in that time she reloaded. _Sixteen shots is all I have to get through_. she grimaced at the Grimm reminder. _Hehe, that was a good one._ a small grin crept on her face at the mental pun.

She suddenly saw an opening and she ran for it.

A Beowolf leapt at her from the right, trying to take advantage. BANG.

 _Fifteen._

From her right, a Grimm just ready to swipe at her as she ran past.

BANG.

 _fourteen._

A couple charging her from the left.

BANG BANG

 _Twelve._

Four more stood in her way.

BANG BANG BANG BANG

 _Eight._

She was running out and she was only half way there.

Another three on the right.

BANG BANG BANG

 _Six left. I'm almost there._

She could see them clearly now. The Alpha was throwing slow, almost lazy strikes at Jaune while he blocked or avoided the blows he thought he couldn't.

It's playing with him. She realized. Dawning Horror mounting on her features.

BANG BANG

Two more Beowolves died midleap, bone maskscracked from the entry of the rounds and she sped up slightly, narrowly avoiding the collision of the rapidly evaporating bodies.

 _Four._

She had finally reached the edge of the impromptu arena for the Alpha and as she did she saw that three of the wolves had decided to get it over with and kill the small human.

BANG BANG BANG.

She ended those plans quickly enough.

 _Only one left before i have to reload._

She sped up quickly to hopefully get there before the Alpha went in for the kill.

The Alpha saw the Arc Huntress running up him and his plaything however and he decided that he shouldn't play with his food at this time.

Chrysta felt a pang of fear in her gut as the Alpha quickly got into a ready position and leaped for Jaune, aiming to cut the Aura-less boy's throat out. In less than a second, she stopped and took aim with the remaining loaded Punctuator at the Grimm's eye, she could make the shot. She pulled the trigger.

CLICK.

Her stomach fell out from under her. She had miscounted and now it was too late to draw her back-up machete. She could only stand there helpess as her brother was moments away from death. _And It's all my fault._

The claws reached closer, The Alpha was fully in the air.

Jaune ducked.

Shock filled Chrysta's system as she saw her _little_ brother dodge the leap by ducking. The claws shot over where is head was. When she had saw the leap she would never have imagined that Jaune could have survived it, or even escape it unharmed.

But that wasn't the only thing that was going to shock her.

The Alpha hadn't expected the dodge from the small human, but a long life had taught the old Grimm to adapt to such unexpected situations. It used it's long reach to stab one of it's claws into the earth right behind the small human, using It's momentum to spin around to face It's prey. He didn't expect the sight that met the wolf's old eyes.

Jaune, with a two-handed grip on Crocea Mors, with the tip of the ancient blade reaching toward the Alpha's eye. It was the last sight the Alpha saw.

Chrysta had watched Jaune plant the sword into the eye of the Grimm. with a wet squelch the blade sunk into the eye hole of the Grimm mask. The Alpha shuddered and then fell like a puppet with It's strings cut. She saw Jaune breathing hard, sweat covering his skin and a shell shocked expression on his face. She slowly approached him, absently noting that the sound from her team-mates was getting softer indicating they were running out of Grimm. As she reached Jaune she fell to her knees and hugged the 14 year old boy, he kept staring at the now dead and evaporating Alpha. Chrysta didn't know what she was saying but she was sure it was some variations of " I'm Sorry", over and over again.

Suddenly she felt Jaune twist around and wrap his arms around her as well. As the embraced themselves, she felt moisture coming from her shoulder as sobs wracked Jaune's body. She didn't know how long they stayed like that but it was long enough that all of the hundreds of Beowolves had been killed and dissolved. Even Crocea Mors was free from the now evaporated Alpha corpse when Jaune had stopped crying and Chrysta had stopped crying with him.

She let go of him gingerly as he did the same, both siblings still worried about losing each other if they let go. "Well, better get your sword young hunter." she said to the younger Arc, forcing cheer into her voice. Jaune however smirked, likely getting the spirit of the comment. He picked up the abandoned blade, collapsed the sheath, sheathed the sword and clipped the combination onto his belt.

"Don't worry Jaune, we can talk about everything on the way home."  
Jaune said nothing, but a weak smile and a nod showed that he had heard Chrysta. Suddenly Jaune moved and hugged his sister tightly. "I love you Chrysta."

Chrysta smiled. "I love you too Jaune, now lets get out of here before our mom and dad come out looking for you." Jaune let go, looked his sister in the eyes and nodded.

Chrysta turned around to face her team. "Alright guys, Good job now let's move out." They didn't say anything, but as she passed them she saw them giving each other sly smiles, even Crimson had a near permanent grin on his face. She knew she would get teased over Jaune later. Her smile widened. _It's worth it_ , she thought, _As long as i have my little brother they can make fun of me all they want._

"Uhh, Chrysta?!"

She turned towards the sound of Jaune's voice. Her grin slipped right off her face. Jaune was behind everyone, surrounded by blue swirling light. She rushed towards him. She wasn't going to leave her brother again!

She was close enough and she leaped for him. Her semblance slowed down the world around her as her feet left the ground, reaching out for her brother. She wasn't going to lose him! Even with the feeling clinching her heart and tying it into knots She wasn't!

Just before she reached him. She saw his face, wide-eyed and scared, silently pleading her to save him.

With a flash of blue light and the sound of electricity, Jaune was gone.

She landed on the floor roughly but she was too shocked at the sudden disappearance of the teenager to notice. Her mind felt like it was straining to keep in one piece, unable to process the fact that after all that had happened, Jaune was gone anyway. Jaune had disappeared even after surviving something he shouldn't have. It felt like fate had smiled upon her when her brother hadn't been taken from her and then that smile had turned cruel as fate had taken him anyway.

She didn't know how long she lay there, how long she tried to hold back the guilt from bringing Jaune here in the first place. The silence was definite, there was no Grimm to interrupt the moment and her teammates could only stand close by to the despairing Arc. All they could do was awkwardly shuffle in place as they were unsure of what to do, what could be done to try to help Chrysta, someone who had been a part of their pseudo-family and just suffered an unexpected, un-explainable and apparently unavoidable loss.

For a second, Crimson looked around him at his team, the closest thing he had to a family and to one member in particular who had become his partner on his first day at Beacon Academy. He knew that Chrysta could have dealt with Jaune's death if it came during his fight with the Alpha as any fourteen year old without training would have had no chance from a Grimm such as that but... Jaune hadn't died.

Jaune had survived and managed to kill the Alpha in the process with no prior training or any other equipment but his sword and shield. His weapons weren't mecha-shift either, just a sword and shield which could only do what a sword and shield could do. Considering Crimson's own weapon was mecha-shift and even he would trouble with killing an Alpha in one hit and he had a rocket launcher.

Frankly, He figured that in time, Jaune could maybe have been one of the best Huntsmen in Remnant. Unfortunately, Jaune wasn't here and Chrysta was simultaneously tearing herself apart and keeping herself together about it. He knew that hundreds of recriminations about losing Jaune to an uncertain fate. It didn't even occur to her that Jaune could pop out of the trees any second, she just wasn't that type of person, and she was likely thinking about worse and worse fates for her younger brother and blaming herself for every single one.

Crimson got down and took her into an awkward hug, due to her prone position. He then said something that she needed to hear, even though it would shatter what balance she had.  
"It's not your fault that Jaune is gone."

Chrysta felt like a dam inside her burst.

She felt herself crying, she didn't care. Jaune was gone.

She screamed out Jaune's name until she was hoarse, she didn't care. Jaune was gone.

Her team surrounded her, trying to comfort her, she didn't care. Jaune was gone.

She got up and searched until her legs felt like jelly, she didn't care. Jaune was gone.

She collapsed to the floor sobbing while her team mates looked out for Grimm and all that time the horrible feeling around her heart clenched. Jaune was gone.

She cried herself to sleep on that forest floor as the guilt for taking Jaune on this trip in the first place crushed her. Jaune was gone.

Jaune was gone. _She messed up._

Jaune was gone, _and it's all my fault._

-

As he looked at the sparking and clearly smoking molecular relay, Dr Johnson of the Advanced Systems Department of the Institute knew he messed up.

He stared at the smoking ruin of supremely advanced technology, the pride and joy of the Institute and now, a metaphor for his reputation.

"Sir. As you are aware, this outcome was predicted." came a monotone and synthetic voice behind him.

He turned to face his 'partner' in this mess. He was a Gen 1 synth. Unrealistic, plastic skin fitted over a mechanical skeleton and clad in the white synth uniform although age has removed some of the false skin on his forehead, revealing the metal underneath. All in all a beginning attempt to the synth program, and a synth old enough to probably remember Johnson as a child. Of course at the end of the day, Lab assistant was not the most dangerous job a synth could do. Not by a long shot.

"You know E4, you are missing the point of science. The point is to try and then see what happens." Johnson said, easily slipping into a lecturing tone.

"While yes, the point of scientific endevour it to try the unknown, you specifically decided to ignore safety limits on a highly advanced technology that has been known to twist the laws of space and time and thus required those limits to ensure the safety of both the operator and the machine." E4-72 pointed out to him, taking a consistent and almost bored tone during his explanation.  
"...You can't do anything by staying safe."  
"You can keep Institute property intact by following safety guidelines" shot back E4.

"..." Dr Johnson remained quiet. "... I'm in big trouble aren't I?"  
"That seems statistically likely."  
Dr Johnson sighed, maybe his career wasn't completely ruined. Possibly, Maybe.

The intercom came to life. "Dr Johnson. Calling Dr Johnson, please report to the Director's office immediately. Repeat, please report to the Director's office Immediately."

Dr Johnson sighed and left the room, moving quickly in the hopes that he won't get too many stares from the people in the atrium.

E4-72 just stood there, staring at the smoking wreckage of the most important device in the Institute. If he could have, he would have been giggling like an adolescent girl. But E4-72 couldn't do that, so he went to go find his fellow synths that he had a positive relationship with.  
This information needed dissemination after all.

-

Jaune didn't know what happened to him. The last thing he remembered was his older sister's worried face and then there was light and then pain as he hit the ground. He kept his eyes shut, the light having made them water and be in immense pain.

Jaune tried to stand up. As his hand touched the ground, he noticed it felt wrong, _dead._  
Jaune thought that was strange as nothing he had felt on Remnant had felt like that. There was life everywhere, even in the most barren of soil. Jaune raised himself, fingers digging into the _dead_ earth for him to get to his feet. He felt horrible and his vision was blurry.

As he had finally stood up and looked around, Jaune Arc, 14-year-old, had the sinking feeling that he would be in this... _place_ for a while.

Because what had greeted Jaune Arc's sight was not the lush greens of the forest...

But the gray of a forest of blackened, long dead trees.

AN: Another story I am moving over because of my lack of time to actually work on the chapter.

Hope you enjoy the writing and feel free to review


	2. 1: Another Day in the Wasteland

**NCR Settlement: Eridu**

 **April 22, 2279**

Redneck Jim watched as his new slaves were being organised. Men in one place, Women in another and children in the last group. Frankly, he was surprised at the incompetence of the NCR.

Here he was, a Raider with his Screaming Vipers, in the middle of NCR territory and he had managed to take this entire town with little to no fuss. Admittedly this was a small town, not as large as the Hub or Vault town, but it still had over a hundred people and he just couldn't believe that all that stood between him and pillaging it was a couple of old people and a single NCR soldier. It obviously wasn't enough. He shook his head at the sight of several of the townspeople crying over their new fate.

 _The NCR is making these people into wimps._ Jim thought to himself in distaste. At forty-three years old, Jim remembered a time when slaves would look at you with hate as they realised their new fate, looking for any method to kill you and regain their freedom. Now... Now they broke down at the sight of someone being hung up on the meat hooks. Shocked, disgusted, scared, angry are emotions he would expect from doing something like that, not breaking down and crawling into a fetal position.

 _Hell, I probably don't even need the bomb collars I brought here. They'd probably be dead scared of just a few threats and gunshots._ Jim mused as he ran his hand over his bald, dark-skinned head.

Jim looked around at the town. It was pretty nice, makeshift houses, organised roads, He would have loved to live here if he wanted to be completely _fuckin bored._

He saw Pinkie sitting on one of the house's roof, her trademark pink mohawk distracting from her horribly scarred face and her scantily clad, light skinned, body being more distracting. She was sunning herself on the roof, her hunting rifle lying next to her. She lazily waved at Jim, having seen him looking at her. Anyone who didn't know her would have made the mistake that she wasn't aware of her surroundings. She was the sniper of the group after all. On a house opposite from her was a new guy that Jim hadn't cared to learn yet. He was wearing leather armor and he also had a hunting rifle with him. Jim found a scowl form on his face as he saw something he didn't like.

Okay, Jim had decided that the new guy's new name is Dumb Fuck because Dumb Fuck was sleeping on lookout duty. Jim looked around for something and he saw what he wanted. He bent down and picked up a sizable stone, it was round, smooth and it was about as big as Jim's palm. _This will get some distance._ Jim thought to himself.

Jim then threw the rock at the idiot and it hit him on the leg. That was enough to wake Dumb Fuck up but then he lived up to his name and freaked out. He flailed around and screamed while his movement broke his balance on the roof and he fell off of it. "AAAAAAAHHH" Dumb Fuck screamed in a high pitch as he entered free fall. A dull thud was heard as he hit the ground, suddenly going quiet and limp.

Jim walked up to the prone form of Dumb Fuck and checked to see if he was still breathing.

 _Wow, he lived up to his name, Dumb Fuck knocked himself out._ Jim thought as he stood up, finished checking that he was still breathing.

"Someone get this guy out of my sight!" Jim shouted to the nearby Raiders. Two older and substantially less stupid raiders went to Dumb Fuck and carried him away.

 _At least I don't pay these idiots..._ Jim thought to himself.

"Hey, You!" Jim's attention was drawn to a little girl, around half his height and looked to be around eight years old. Behind her was an older woman, with the same brown hair and fair skin with similar soft features, that was trying to hold the little girl back with a fearful expression on her face. The little girl wasn't having any of it however and was pushing against her mother's grip. The girl's face was a complete contrast to her mother's expression, it was angry and confident. "You are a bad man!" She accused of Jim.

 _Was this really happening?_ Jim thought with amusement.

Jim gave the child a big smile. "Yes I am, dear. I'm a very bad man."

The child screwed up her face in distaste. "The White Knight is going to kill you because you are a bad man!"

Jim's smile dropped from his face at the mention of that name.

The White Knight, or the Knight of the Wasteland, was a popular legend amongst the smaller towns in the Wasteland. It was said that the White Knight was a man decked in armour that looked like an actual bonafide knight and went from town to town, helping the weak and innocent. There were an immense amount of stories about him, that he was from another world, that he was from the past, that he was actually an ancient ghost of a knight who was resurrected to purge the world of evil. Raiders had their own stories about him, they called him the Red knight, as often whenever they would meet, The knight walked away covered in the Raiders' blood. In Jim's opinion, the Knight was nothing but a myth used to bring hope to the wasteland, with countless people pretending to be him.

 _Besides,_ Jim thought to himself, _If his origin stories were ridiculous, then his reported deeds were completely unbelievable. Who would believe a thing about him riding around on a yellow steed anyway..._

Jim faced the girl. "I'm sorry to break your hopes and dreams, but there isn't anyone coming to save you, idiots. Especially not some fictional character like the White Knigh..."

"SIR! There's something big and yellow coming this way!" Pinkie interrupted him, scanning the horizon with the scope attached to her rifle. Immediately, the raiders yelled at the settlers to get down on the ground, It wouldn't do for the new merchandise to get damaged. The girl meanwhile was giving him a triumphant smirk. He gestured to a nearby raider to get them away and even as the girl was being marched away, the smirk on her face never dropped.

 _He's coming,_ she thought to herself, _He's going to save everyone!_

Redneck Jim found himself standing on the edge of town. Waiting for the Yellow 'steed' to arrive. Pinkie had told him that it was actually a car, but not one she had ever seen before.

As the Car got closer, he could see what she meant...

The car was an old Corvega, The large car had been painted a bright yellow and it seemed to have been maintained with precision. Often when you saw cars in the NCR, they often had pieces missing or were rusted to a dark brown colour. This car had all of its headlights were present, the doors were present and except for the bullet marks and Wasteland dust, the car looked almost pristine. The back of the car was the most strange of it though. The back of the car, where the trunk had used to be, seemed to have been converted into an impromptu robot dock, which currently housed an inactive sentry bot. The sentry bot was intimidating, even when it was off. It looked like the standard sentry bot, bigger than a man and intimidating, but its arms were disturbing. One arm looked like the love child between the standard Gatling laser and a claw while the other arm looked like the standard rocket launcher. Its rounded frame seemed to have given red stripes and someone had made improvised ranking pins by the robot's inactive faceplate.

To be honest with himself, Jim was happy that the machine looked dead from here. It wouldn't have been nice to lose more of the idiots in his band when the car finally got to the town, even if it would have spared him some headaches for a while.

It wasn't a long wait for the car to arrive, but it had felt like ages with the amount of tension in the air. Fortunately, his raiders were smart enough to know that the wasteland was a dangerous place and that dismissing the rumors in the Wasteland out of hand was a quick way to commit suicide.

Unfortunately, most of his raiders were dumb enough to believe in something as stupid as the White Knight.

 _Idiots, the lot of them..._ Jim thought to himself.

Story or not, Jim found himself checking his lucky 10mm several times as his raiders checked their firearms or nervously clutched their knives or clubs.

The wait was over as the bright yellow car came to a stop just outside the town proper. All the raiders raised their guns towards it, most holding their ramshackle firearms nervously while others did so with an excited twitch. Jim even heard a sharp _clack_ above him from a nearby roof, Pinkie must have been checking her hunting rifle, her demeanour as professional as ever even though Jim was sure that even she felt a little nervous.

The car sat there for a while, the sound of the engine filled the silence and ratcheted up the tension. The shadow of the sentry bot from the setting sun, that loomed over the car, gave a menacing feeling to it. It was a few tortuous seconds until the engine shut itself off.

The silence was deafening. Jim could literally hear his heartbeat. His grip on his pistol tightened, he could feel the metal grip dig into his palm.

Jim heard the car door unlock with a click. He could feel his heartbeat in his throat, his mouth was dry.

The car door opened and Jim could hear his raiders cocking their guns.

The occupant of the car got out with efficiency and closed the car door. As the driver got out of the car, Jim...

Jim...

Jim breathed out a small sigh of relief. What stood before him was no myth or Knight of ancient times. What stood before him was an imitation of a man.

It wore a faded green cloak with a hood. The cloak had started to fray at the edges and Jim could see that it wore Jeans, black boots and a leather jacket, all with what looked like heavy metal plates reinforcing them. Underneath that hood, glowed two orange lights from its eyes. Its face was false skin with wear and tear exposing its true nature. One particular rip across the Jawline exposed the metal plate beneath.

It had a large laser rifle across its back and from what Jim could see, it was heavily modded.

Jim smiled, there was no mythical knighr that roamed the Wasteland.

 _It is just some dumb robot_ , Jim thought, _we can deal with some crazy robot._

"Hello, there," Jim shouted, gesturing to his people. "We are a little busy at the moment. With business that don't concern you." Jim made a shooing motion with his hands. "So why don't you get lost, before we start filling you with bullets to go along with your nuts and bolts." Jim put his pistol firmly back into his holster.

A few of his raiders chuckled but not enough to show how funny that joke really was.

 _Going to have to find some guys with a better sense of humor. Can't let all my comedy gold go to waste._

The robot didn't react much, it only turned its head to look at the assembled raiders and finally focused on Jim, its movements were too precise and too smooth to be made by any human.

"I do not think that is possible," It spoke in a deep, synthesised tone, the voice lacking any outward emotion. "You and your group are currently committing a crime that violates the laws of the NCR, violates the laws of the United States of America and violates the most basic ethical standards that are present in the Wasteland. You are also incapable of filling me with lead."

Jim felt himself grow angry at this, no rust bucket was going to tell him what he could do.

"Oh yeah? Why can't we fill you with holes tin man?"

The humanoid robot looked across the gathered raiders again.

"You do not possess the accuracy to hit the largest wall of an agricultural structure." It said, its monotone voice irritating Jim further.

"What the hell did you say about me?" Jim asked, letting menace into his tone. First this robot sticks it's nose into his business and now it was spouting words that he didn't understand. Inflated legend or not, Jim _hated_ it when people did that.

"Um, boss?" said a raider standing behind him. "He... He just said that you can't hit the broad side of a barn boss."

Jim glared at the robot, he could almost feel his blood vessels throb in response to his anger.

"How fucking dare you?! You son of a Vacume!" Jim roared, the robot's head twitching at that last insult. "I don't care who you think you are, Knight, but no one-"

"You are wrong." the robot calmly said.

"What?!"

The robot gestured to itself. "I am not 'Knight'. My designation is D2-R4. The individual designated 'Knight' is standing behind you."

Jim's eyes widened as he realised what the robot had said. He spun around and his heart leapt to his throat from what he saw.

In front of him was a tall figure, clad in what seemed to be modified NCR ranger armour.

The plates were shaped like plate armour that ancient knights used to wear and a dark trench coat was worn over it. The helmet also looked like something a knight would wear, with a single, large vision slit and a ridge on the top of the helmet. The vision slit glowed a dull red.

The armour was painted white with gold highlights while the gauntlets were solid white, the left one looking smaller for some reason.

Just beyond the figure, lay the two raiders that had stood behind Jim, blood pooled around them from the lethal strikes on their body. They had died silently and swiftly, without Jim even having a clue to what happened. The knight had a bloody sword in its left hand, still dripping in the raider's blood, and in its right was what Jim recognised as his lucky 10mm.

Jim's hand absently reached towards his holster. He gripped nothing but air, confirming what he already knew.

You didn't live long as a raider if you didn't know if a situation sucked. Jim _knew_ that he was going to die here. Jim was oddly at peace with that, he had lived a relatively long life and being killed by a legend wasn,t the worst way to go out.

There was one thing he needed to do before that...

"You, son of a-" Jim said calmly before being interrupted.

Jim was interrupted by a gunshot.

 _War. War never changes._

 _War had been a part of human life since the beginning of history._

 _Our ancestors had waged war against the elements, the beasts that prayed upon them and, occasionally each other._

 _Over time, our capacity for war had only grown, each death easier than the last and the body count, far more terrible._

 _Eventually war was no longer waged for survival. The reasons had shifted from existance and survival to religion, opinion and division. Each war being fought with each other for more and more human reasons._

 _On October 23rd 2077, man's capacity for war and death reached a fever point. In a mere two hours, the reasons for war were consumed in atomic fire as well as the civilisations that embraced them. The death and destruction was total, uncaring of ideologies or identities._

 _It wasn't the end of the world, just another bloody chapter in human history._

 _Two hundred years later, the North California Republic, driven by its old world ideals and greed, rapidly expanded across the west coast of what was once the United States of America._

 _It envisioned a wasteland that was united and safe, free from the danger of raiders and beasts._

 _Like most ambitions, reality fell short._

 _With neither the infrastructure or the manpower to secure such a great area, much of what the NCR annexed was NCR in name only. Despite wearing the flag, they were just as vulnerable as they were beforehand._

 _In this fringe of civilisation, appeared a small boy. Having been raised in a world where only the strong waged war while the weak were shielded by their protectors, the hellish Wasteland was a violent change._

 _Jaune Arc survived, barely by most accounts._

 _He had, however, found something amongst the ruins of the old world. An Ideal._

 _An Ideal that people shouldn't have to worry about murderous raiders or hellish wildlife._

 _An Ideal that people could be... safe._

 _Arc had set out to fufill his ambition, and over three, long years a legend grew around him._

 _A legend of a knight who held true to the ideals of justice and heroism, who protected the innocent and slayed beast and guilty alike. A knight who had depopulated raider camps just as easily as saving honest towns_

 _A White Knight of the Wasteland._

 _To become what he needed himself to be, Jaune had found no shortage of enemies in the wasteland, opposing his vision of the future._

 _And so Jaune Arc, for an all too human reason, went to war._

 _Because War, war never changes._

Jaune Arc watched as the Raider Boss fell to the floor, a new hole in his head.

He idly wondered what was passing through the raider's mind in his last few moments.

He then snickered internally at the mental pun.

As he crouched down next to the still warm corpse, he inspected the gun he had taken from the raider boss. The 10mm pistol was old, worn and almost about to break. It was like the raider has actually cared about the pistol but had no idea on how to actually maintain a gun.

Jaune tossed the neigh-worthless pistol away.

 _It really isn't worth the hassle._ Jaune Arc thought to himself as he quickly searched the dead man's pockets.

 _Some caps, 10mm ammo and a switchblade... No collar detonator._

Jaune cursed under his breath and looked again, faster this time. There was only so much time that could be gained from the confusion caused by killing the boss of a bunch of psycopaths. Thanks to D2, the raiders would take longer than normal to start shooting and Jaune was thankfull for the extra time to find the detonator to the bomb collars that raiders use for slaves.

Jaune needed to find that detonator quickly. While Raiders weren't the brightest bunch, some were smart enough to figure out that being able to kill several people with the press of a small button was a hostage situation in the making. It was a good thing that typically only one person in a raider gang was trusted with the detonator. Take them out and then suddenly the innocents became a lot safer.

Nine times out of ten that was the raider boss himself.

And Jaune hoped that it wasn't one of those other times...

"Holy shit!" Jaune heard a raider cry out. His voice sounding equally panicked and awed. "He killed Redneck Jim!"

Jaune gazed upon the dark-skinned man's unblemished neck.

"Why was he called Redneck Jim?" Jaune yelled out while he continued frantically 1ooking for the detonator.

 _Yeah, that's it. If they're talking, then they aren't shooting_

"He was the best at slittin' throats!" A different yet equally scared raider called out.

 _Of course... Psychopaths... How could I have forgotten?_

Jaune let out a quiet cheer as he finally found the collar detonator. He quickly looked for the power switch to find it... Already off?

...

 _Huh. Guess they didn't use any._ Jaune thought to himself as he threw the detonator away and ran to a piece of cover.

 _Should be about... Now._

Jaune's attentiveness was rewarded as he narrowly dodged a bullet as he vaulted over and took cover behind a convenient piece of rubble.

"Wake up you stupid Assholes!" A rough, female voice sounded out from the rooftops. "Fukken kill them before they kill you!"

The shouting seemed to break the raiders out of whatever shock had overtaken them and Jaune's makeshift cover was pelted by poorly aimed shots. Jaune looked over to his car to see D2 taking cover behind Jaune's car, the armoured panels providing adequate cover from the low caliber rounds being shot at him as he took potshots at the raiders with his custom laser rifle.

Each shot was a lethal or disabling shot.

His gaze passed over to CPRL and he noticed that he hadn't moved at all.

The great, mechanical arms were still and the sentry bot's visor was completely dark.

 _Damn. He wasn't paying attention._

"Corporal!" Jaune shouted towards the Sentry. "Wake up!"

The Sentry didn't move.

Jaune let out a sigh of frustration as the bullets kept flying around him. It was always a bad habit of CPRL to take "operations" way too seriously.

"C. R. P. L. The operation is finished. The sneak attack was successful!" Jaune yelled at the robot, not even attempting to disguise his annoyance.

There was a second where all that could be heard was the ongoing firefight and then a loud hiss of air escaped the sentry bot. Unlike almost every other robot, a sentry bot activating was noisy. The robot's visor lit up, glowing an intimidating red. CRPL clanked and whined as it extended to it's full, intimidating size. The impromptu battlefield had gone silent, the sounds of the sentry bot activating had carried across the battlefield and now the raiders looked on in shock and fear. Eventually, the sentry reached its full height and its glowing visor turned to stare at the silent raiders.

Jaune wasn't idle during this little performance, however. The moment CRPL had started up, Jaune had started preparing for the fight ahead. Jaune had quickly sheathed Crocea Mors, grimacing slightly at the blood he'd have to clean out of the scabbard later. He then had turned to the grey Pipboy 3000 on his right arm. A sword would have been great if it was going to be an up close fight but it would have been suicide against guns. Jaune needed a bigger gun than any of the raiders had.

After browsing through his inventory, Jaune selected one of his better rifles.

With a flash of light, A modified Laser rifle materialised in his hands. The rifle was slightly shorter than a normal laser rifle and it had both a custom emmiter and a reflex sight. The rifle was coloured black and red with white highlights. Unlike D2's rifle, which was optimised for accuracy and power, this rifle was optimised for rapid fire and efficency. Jaune had affectionately named it a laser carbine from a type of gun he had read about in an old book.

Unfortunately the accuracy of the carbine... Sucked. Jaune didn't exactly know how the lasers managed to not go in a straight line, probably heat effecting the focus or something, but the carbine had the habit of the beams not being very accurate at long ranges. That was why Jaune was silently creeping towards the still stunned raiders. When the shooting started, Jaune needed to be in spitting distance of most of them. His experience in moving quickly and silently meant that it only took a few seconds to get to a closer piece of rubble to take cover behind.

Jaune was pretty sure that he stood out among the ramshackle buildings and rubble that made up the town, custom painted armor tends to do that, but thankfully, a sentry bot activating was far more noticable than him.

By now, CPRL had finished his exaggerated start up sequence, " **All the better to scare those cowardly communists!** " he had said when Jaune had asked, and now the sentry was staring down at the assembled raiders, the glowing vision slit showing no expression.

" **Attention Communist Raider Scum!"** CPRL said in the characteristic sentry voice. " **You are guilty of breaking the right to life, liberty and safety that every freedom-loving American enjoys in our Great, Capitalist Constitution! By violating these rights, you have proven yourselves to be enemies of the state, Communist scum!"** The last sentence having been said with no small amount of synthesised venom.

" **As Enemies of America itself, you have been preemptively judged by the government of the United States of America..."**

CPRL's claw opened up, revealing the glowing emitter of the integrated Gatling laser as the capacitor began spinning. The raiders had begun to inch backward, they wanted to run away from the robotic tank but were worried that running would set it off. Jaune could almost see their nervous sweat and trembling jaws.

The sentry cocked it's missile launcher, a loud hiss and thunk sounded out as a missile was loaded inside.

 **"The judgement is death!"** yelled the sentry as it opened fire.

The raiders were quick on the uptake but they still only had the reaction speed of a human junkie.

Gatling lasers were inevitably inaccurate, being too heavy to properly aim and the electromagnetic recoil making it extremely hard to keep steady even with power armour.

CPRL had none of these problems. It's custom arm was designed to handle the weight of it's integrated gatling laser with impressive dexterity and the robotic brain could calculate minute corrections to the recoil of each shot.

So in less time for the raiders to react, several of them had recieved hyperaccurate and rapid laser fire that was most certainly lethal.

By the time the raiders had started to run for cover, several raiders had been reduced to ash or burnt pieces of corpses.

It was only a few seconds until the raiders were scattered all over the area, with missiles destroying any sufficently large group of raiders and D2 sniping out potential leaders before they could organise the mass of scared wasteland bandits.

Jaune wasn't idle. He had taken aim at any sufficiently close raider and opened fire, the repeating laser blasts tearing apart ramshackle armour and charing the flesh underneath.

It wasn't long before the smell of cooked meat reached Jaune even through the filters in his helmet. Eventualy the raiders acknowledged his presence and kept far away from the laser knight.

Jaune didn't mind, he needed the exercise anyway, and Jaune broke cover to chase the fleeing raiders in the street.

 _With the three of us here, this is going to be a cakewalk._ Jaune thought to himself as he noticed the mechanical efficency of his companions.

Some raiders had less than sane reactions to the chaos, however. High on whatever drugs or simply overcome by bloodlust, a few charged back at their attackers. Most of them charged at the hulking sentry where they either received fast, photonic death or a severe bludgeoning by a heavy rocket launcher. D2 dealt with his assailants with consecutive, precise and almost dismissive headshots, as befitting the slight emotion of annoyance on the synth's face.

There was even one that was coming for Jaune. The raider was yelling at the top of his lungs while brandishing a large machete above his head. He only wore pants with rusted metal making up makeshift kneepads and breastplate, exposing his tanned and heavily scarred arms. Jaune could see the raider's blood stained eyes and speckled hair showing off the raider's excessive Psycho usage. Jaune figured that the drug must have burnt out the man's common sense.

And when a seventeen-year-old thought that then you knew you messed up.

Jaune checked his laser carbine and cursed. The micro-fusion cell in the carbine was too drained to kill off the raider.

 _A time where it would be perfectly_ _reasonable_ _to just shoot him and I can't._ Jaune complained internally.

The Raider was too close for Jaune to load another cell or even draw _Crocea Mors._

So Jaune dropped the carbine and raised his arms into a ready position.

He could see the sheer excitement that crossed the raider's face when he could see that Jaune was unarmed and as the raider came in range, he swung the blade, hoping to slice Jaune diagonally.

He didn't notice Jaune's satisfied smirk as he moved his left arm in the way of the blade. The raider didn't notice how Jaune didn't move his arm as the raider adjusted the blade to cut the cloth part of the armour. He did notice that there was no blood when the blade struck the knight's arm. Instead, there was a metal clang as the blade stopped on the arm.

His surprise was so total that he failed to notice Jaune's right fist until it slammed into the raider's stomach, driving the breath out of the raider's lungs. The raider stumbled back, struggling to catch his breath.

"Oops, that wasn't very effective." Jaune jokingly commented.

He looked down at where his cybernetic arm was cut by the blade and was satisfied that all the damage he could see was a small scratch. Jaune was glad that he implanted all those shock absorbers into his arm, they really helped in situations like these.

Jaune looked back at the struggling raider, noticing that the man was slowly recovering. Jaune flicked his metal hand a certain way and felt a small mechanism jump out of the palm of his hand.

"This.., might be more effective" Jaune spoke to the struggling raider.

And so Jaune aimed a punch from his left hand onto the raider's chest.

As the cybernetic fist connected, the integrated ballistic fist fired.

The shotgun round tore through the makeshift breastplate like paper, ripping apart the raider inside.

The raider collapsed,blood flowing freely and quickly dying.

"Jaune used Boom, it was super effective" Jaune sounded out as he cocked his arm back, reloading his fist and expelling the used cartridge.

Jaune would have loved to just stand there but he had a town to save. He sighed as he retracted the shotgun mechanism, by now the raiders had scattered throughout the town and will probably take most of the day to get rid of.

All that Jaune could see were his friends and raider corpses.

 _Sigh, might as well do this right..._

He turned to D2, "Hey D2, could you please go snipe any raiders from the buildings?"

D2 gave Jaune a nod of acknowledgement and ran up to a building. With one powerful leap, D2 was on the roof of the one-story building he had chosen.

Jaune turned towards the idling sentry bot. "Hey CRPL."

 **"Greetings Patriot Arc. It is a glorious day to protect hard working Americans from Communist Raiders."** CPRL replied, synthesised voice full of patriotism.

"Well, Today doesn't suck." Jaune shrugged. "I need you to come with me to find the civilians and then to stand guard over them."

The sentry saluted with it's claw arm. " **Yes, sir! I will not fail to protect those citizens! Shall we go, Patriot Arc?"**

Jaune nodded and gestured for CPRL to follow. As they walked into town, Jaune couldn't help but feel that it was going to be a very long day.

Because war, war never changes.

 _And raiders are too stupid to do so either._

 _xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx_

AN: Here we go, another chapter.

I had to import this document to keep the formatting and I must say that it looked slightly different in my google doc.

Either way, I am taking the story away from Fallout canon because I planned most of the story to happen in Remnant.

Again I hope you enjoy the writing!

Comments and Criticisms are welcome.


	3. 2: A little Cleanup

It took me way to long to write this.  
All the work and inspiration for other things being larger put this on the backburner for me.  
Once again, descriptions are the bane of my will to write.

Either way. Hope you enjoy the Writing.  
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Throughout its lifespan, Eridu had always been considered an empty town.  
When the settlement had first started, Eridu had been a small collection of huts that had housed less than a dozen farmers that could barely protect themselves or produce enough food to provide for themselves. Life was hard on the settlers of Eridu as the bleak Wasteland soil and brutal raiders reaped a bloody toll on the inhabitants. However, either through determination or stubbornness, those settlers managed to survive against the perils of the wasteland and Eridu became as one of the few beacons of stability in the chaos of the life in it.

Many were attracted to Eridu, to a life slightly divorced from the brutal Wasteland, and thus the small settlement grew into a small town. Even as the town increased in size, Eridu has never been a place of importance and thus while places such as Shady Sands grew into urban sprawls, pale imitations of the cities that once littered the old world, Eridu barely had more than a hundred people throughout its life.

However, the growing NCR in the west expanded constantly and the ever moving border eventually overtook the small town of Eridu. The NCR, through a detached bureaucratic perspective and influenced by influential businesses, had overestimated Eridu's growth and importance. Within a month, huts and ramshackle homes were torn down and rebuilt by professional, well paid, builders. What was once a small collection of homes, perfect for Eridu's inhabitants, became a barely populated town. When the Screaming Vipers had arrived, they had greatly outnumbered the hundred or so settlers and for the first time, the city was populated.

Over the last few hours, that had changed significantly.

Before the raiders had arrived, the city streets were metaphorically dead. Now those streets were just as dead as before, with the addition of multitudes of dead raiders, each sporting lethal laser wounds or other equally deadly injuries. The greatest concentration of dead raiders were located outside of the town hall, where the raiders had put their captive settlers.

And just outside that, was a frustrated sentry bot and cowering raiders.

-

" **Exit the building and you will not be immediately vaporised, Communist Scum!** " Came the booming voice of a Sentry bot across the street.  
"I don't believe you!" came the significantly softer reply from a terrified voice across the street.  
" **It is not misdirection. You will not be reduced to your Communist leaning atoms for 1.43 seconds."**  
The silence was deafening.

Irritation seethed through CPRL's circuits as he gazed at the ramshackle structure that the raiders were hiding in.  
He had already calculated all the weak points that would easily bring down the structure down on their communist heads with a zero percent chance of survival but unfortunately, he couldn't use any of it to deal with the raiders hiding from true AMERICAN JUSTICE.

Patriot Jaune had asked him to defend the Loyal Americans in the building behind him from the traitorous scum that had tried to take their Constitutionally given freedom away. While CPRL had felt sad that he wouldn't be able to contribute to the deaths of these godless **Commies** , he had to admit that his robotic frame was just too large to hunt down the raiders with Jaune and D2-R4 through the city.

CPRL's disappointment didn't last long after Jaune had left, though. Jaune's precaution to protect the civilians had been proven appropriate when a large group of the communists had come to further oppress the American citizens that CPRL was protecting.  
His disappointment had been replaced by a sense of satisfaction as he made sure that the communists couldn't threaten anyone ever again with an appropriate application of laser blasts and rockets.

After a minute of showing the raiders the true power of liberty, a small group of the godless communists had lost what courage they had and decided to hide in one of the buildings across from the town hall. Normally, CPRL would have simply demolished the house with the raiders inside. Unfortunately, Patriot Jaune had asked him to avoid collateral damage to the town and thus such justified demolition of a subverted structure was unacceptable. So the stalemate continued, CPRL had no armaments to clear the building without damaging it extensively and the raiders wouldn't leave the building in fear of justified disintegration.

It was times like this that CPRL almost wished that he was a smaller model of sentry bot, able to fight in small spaces more efficiently. It was easy to remind himself that many enemies to America would have succeeded in their diabolical plans and that made him feel significantly better about his armoured, large frame. Nevertheless, CPRL was now reduced to yelling at the raiders instead of crushing them absolutely as he should.

" **You must exit the building immediately or I will demolish it and bury you under patriotic rubble!"  
"**You said that already," came the reply from a different, more confident raider. "And you still haven't blown up the building yet, stupid robot!"  
CPRL felt another surge of irritation, he had calculated that the raider retention span would be short enough that he could use that specific attempt again. It didn't matter in the long run but he would have appreciated if they had come out that time.

"Hey, Corporal! What's going on?"

CPRL turned his optics toward the familiar voice and felt relief at who he saw. Patriot Arc had returned and was eyeing the fresh communist bodies around the area.  
" **Greetings Patriot Arc! I am attempting to remove several Communists from the building in front of me.** "  
Jaune turned to give the building a thoughtful look.  
"And you can't just knock it down..." Jaune mumbled at a volume that was still audible to CPRL.  
" **Yes. You stated that collateral damage to the city would be an unacceptable mission parameter.** **May I inquire to the location of D5?** "  
Jaune glanced at his robotic friend as he answered. "D5 will be a bit late. There was one raider with a sniper rifle that was pretty good with it."  
CPRL wasn't surprised. He had registered some admitedly precise hits on his "weak points" (As if a machine of patriotic justice such as him could have weak points in his American-made armour) and D5 was surprisingly eager when someone challenged the synth's position as the most accurate sniper in the Frontier.

Jaune continued to stare at the house. It was a single story, one room building that was constructed with concrete and assorted scrap meal as far as CPRL could detect. It had the rushed construction that was present in most NCR buildings as well, showed by the uneven walls and the glaring hole in the building's roof.

It still amazed CPRL that the NCR would house Loyal Americans in such poorly constructed houses.

It was then that Patriot Jaune spoke up.  
"I don't think that going inside would be a good idea for me." Jaune mused aloud.  
"Got that right Shitstain!" came the reply from inside the house.  
Jaune ignored the insult and stepped silently to the door of the house.  
"So I guess I won't go in."  
"Haha! Yea... Wait what?"

With a simple flourish, Jaune unsheathed the blade at his side. Crocea Mors was the blade's name and Jaune had stated that it was a family heirloom and that only made it more impressive to CPRL's optics. Over the two years that CPRL had been following Patriot Arc, the blade had never needed maintenance or even a simple sharpening. Its metallurgy was something that CPRL doubted was a product of either America or the Communists.  
Not even Jaune could reproduce it when he made his secondary blade, Atrox Mors.

The blade gleamed in the light as Jaune inspected it before jamming it in the door frame, making the door immoveable.

"What was that?" Sounded out a question from behind the door.  
Jaune took a few steps back towards CPRL as the door rattled, the blade blocking it from opening.  
"The door's stuck!" a raider shouted as the rattling of the door increased to a frantic pace.

After a few steps, Jaune stopped facing the house. With a few presses of the pip-boy and a flash of materialisation revealed the brown casing and green lights of a plasma grenade.  
He then tossed the grenade up and down repeatedly, testing the weight.

After the third toss, his thumb hit the activation button and he launched the grenade upwards. CPRL saw the grenade approach the roof of the house and fall through the hole.  
"Hey! What's that?"  
"Oh, Shit!"  
With the sound of a plasma explosion, the house creaked and then no sounds could be heard from inside.

"Huh..." Patriot Arc muttered and experience told you there was a shocked expression below his helmet.  
" **It seems that the structure was not majorly affected by the detonation."**  
"Yeah. I guess the NCR builders are getting better." Jaune replied.

CPRL then felt Jaune knock on his armor.  
"Come on. I think those were the last ones and its probably time to tell the people that they're safe now."

As Jaune walked towards the hall that CPRL was guarding, he scanned the area one last time.

It sometimes CPRL wondered how Patriot Arc could take up the mantle of defeating Godless Communists at such a young age. But knowing the current state of America, CPRL had an idea.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

The town had been hopeful when they heard the raiders that had occupied Eridu fighting outside the town hall. The town had celebrated when they had heard that all the raiders had been killed fighting their saviours.

The town had rejoiced when they had seen who their savior was.

The White Knight of the Wasteland. The protector of the innocent and slayer of the wicked.  
It wasn't every day that a legend of the frontier visits your town and saves it in the process.  
Eridu wasn't a very prosperous town but there was a bar and free drinks was the least they could do.

That is how Kaitlyn found herself staring at the man several hours after rescuing the town. He was sitting in one of the booths at the end of the bar, working on something on the table. It surprised her that he didn't look like the legends at all. He wasn't eight-feet tall and built like a truck. While the armor did conceal a lot, it showed her that he had a lean figure and was shorter than she expected someone like him to be. Without the armor, she was sure that she wouldn't recognise him.

The armor made the Knight stand out completely. The plates had been modified in order to look like some ancient knight. His helmet was the most distinctive, with a single vision slit and some protrusions that looked like wings on the sides along with some gasmask things on the face. Of course, he was still wearing his helmet which left mystery to how he actually looked like. Interestingly enough, he hadn't taken off his helmet at all since he had arrived a the bar, leaving Kaitlyn with many different and suitably manly images of what he might look like.

She wasn't an idiot. She knew what would have happened to her if the raiders had managed to drag the town away and she hoped that she could be forgiven for admiring the man that saved her from such a fate. A simple glance around the bar showed that she wasn't the only admirer of his. Quite a few Women were staring in his direction and it didn't take a mind-reader to know what they were thinking. They didn't seem to want to bother him from his tinkering with some item on the table, however she knew that they wouldn't wait forever...

 _Well! No time like the present._ Kaitlyn thought to herself as she stood up while running a hand through her red hair, making sure that it wasn't a terrible mess. She started walking towards him but despite her self encouragement, she couldn't move faster than a slow walk.  
 _  
What if he didn't want to talk? What of I said the wrong thing? What do I even talk about?_  
These were a few of the doubts that went through Kaitlyn's mind as she moved towards the Knight.

Her mind was so occupied that it was a surprise for her when she felt a metal hand land on her shoulder. She stifled a small eep when she felt the unknown figure pull her towards it, the strength in the figure's arm surpassing any attempt at resistance.  
"Hello," A clearly synthesised voice said quietly. "Before you talk to my friend over there, my companion and I would like to talk with you before hand.'

Kaitlyn, surprised by the sudden interruption, didn't resist being guided to another table by the mystery man. The table that had a sentry bot parked next to it.

As they arrived the table, the sentry dipped itself in what Kaitlyn saw as an attempt to nod at them. After she had been guided to sit down, the mysterious figure sat down next to the sentry bot. Kaitlyn had to stop herself from gasping aloud at what she saw. The man was covered in some sort of leather armor with a large amount of pouches with a hood and a large sniper device on his back. The only part of him visible was his face and what she saw shocked her. Instead of skin, the man had some synthetic substance that was almost paper white. There were tears in his "skin", showing that where there should have been flesh and bone, there was only empty space and metal. The eyes were the most striking, metal orbs that emmitted yellow light.  
She had heard that one of the Knight's companions was some sort of synthetic man but she had assumed that he would have looked more human.

The machine man gave her a small smile.  
"Don't worry. I'm used to the reactions by now."  
Shaking her head slightly to clear it, Kaitlyn hated being on the backfoot in a conversation and needed to focus.  
"So, What did you want to talk about?" Kaitlyn asked, hoping that she managed to keep the nervousness out of her voice.  
" **We have analyzed your facial expressions and mannerisms and have concluded that you wish to engage in relations with Patriot Arc."** This time the sentry bot answered, the normally booming voice having its volume tuned down to not disturb the other people in the bar.

The machine man grimaced.  
"He isn't wrong, but first the introductions. My name is D2-R4." The man held out his hand and Kaitlyn shook it.  
" **My designation is CPRL-56.** "

Kaitlyn nodded at the large robot.  
"So. I get that you are his friends or something. Do you want me to declare my intentions or something?" Kaitlyn asked, puzzled at the reason of this little detour.  
" **Your intentions are obvious to anyone with optical sensors. We are communicating a warning to you.** "  
D2 sighed again. Kaitlyn had no idea if he had lungs or he was just playing the sound of a sigh through whatever he used to speak.  
"Before you get the wrong idea, we aren't warning you in the normal way. It's more of us warning you what you are getting into."

Kaitlyn was puzzled. "What do you mean?"  
D2 pinched the bridge of his nose in what Kaitlyn was surprised to see as frustration.  
"Despite the possible rumors... Jaune isn't that experienced at relationships and he can be..."  
" **Patriot Arc has great enthusiasm and sometimes it comes off inappropriately to the average American Citizen."**  
D2 sent a withering glare at CPRL for interrupting him.  
"That's the essence of it. He's also a bit-"  
" **Arc has not calibrated his sensors to find relationships."**  
Kaitlyn looked up at the towering sentry bot. She couldn't believe that she was getting this discussion from a mechanical man and a robot of mass destruction. She then sent a meaningful look towards D2.  
"Umm," she started. "What does that mean?"  
"Okay," D2 replied, throwing his hands up. "Out goes subtlety..."

D2 sat up straighter than he was previously and his face morphed into a more serious version of his previous, neutral expression.  
"Look. We know how you are feeling about our gallant knight over there." D2 thumbed in the direction of the Knight. "The problem is that he doesn't know how to stop and he doesn't know how to look."  
"Wha?"  
" **There is a very small chance that you will be noticed romantically."**  
"And If you are, he is going to jump into it full force..." D2 shrrugged. "We've given this talk to many different girls and they either left dissapointed or annoyed. We don't mind if you try but we want to spare some heartbreak down the road."

Kaitlyn understood where they were coming from. She had given a talk like this one to some of the guys that wanted to try their luck with one of her more _passionate_ friends.  
"Hey. I understand. You don't want to see your friend hurt or accidentally hurt someone else. I'm not that kind of girl though. I just want to get to know him better and see if anything comes from it."

D2 and CPRL shared a look.  
" **He is old enough to make decisions."**  
D2 looked at Kaitlyn, resignation in his face.  
"Yeah, He is old enough. Go ahead. have fun."

Smiling to herself, she nodded at the two robots and made to walk over to the Knight, ignoring the coversation that they were now in.  
"He still isn't an adult."  
" **He is one year from the age of majority. If Patriot Arc is old enough to fight the communist scum then he is old enough for civillian relations."  
"**He has been fighting since 14. It's only been three years."  
" **Four years. There was that incident in the lab.** "  
As Kaitlyn got out of earshot of the two robots, she smiled at what she found out.  
Jaune Arc. Sweet and it rolled off her tongue. She liked it.

It wasn't long before she made it to the booth Jaune was sitting at.  
"Hello. Is this seat taken?"  
Jaune looked up suddenly, as though he was startled.  
After looking at her for a second, she saw his frame lose the sudden tension that he had gained.  
"Nope. Please take a seat." came a surprisingly young voice from behind the helmet.  
He gestured with his right hand to the seat opposite of him.

As she sat down, she finally got a good look at what he had been working on.  
His left arm was on the table and where there would normallt be flesh was metal and some components that she didn't recognise.

She must have been staring at it because Jaune made a sound simmilar to a cough.  
"Oh, Sorry. I completely forgot..."  
With one hand, Jaune deftly unbuckled his helmet and started removng it.  
"I normally don't use the helmet when I'm in a bar or something but one of the raiders had shot my arm and the optical zoom is really useful for fixing it."  
As he took off the helmet, Kaitlyn was shocked.  
Jaune had a young, boyish face and a mess of blonde hair that lay on top of his face.  
What had surprised her was the number of light scars on his face, some of them framing his bright blue eyes.  
"The name's Jaune Arc. It's great to meet you."

"What happened?" She couldn't help but ask.  
Jaune smiled at her.  
"I lost my arm to a Deathclaw funnily enough. As for the scars..."  
Jaune shrugged. "Living in the wasteland wasn't as easy as I thought it was."  
Kaitlyn's face must have shown her mortification at being told that Jaune had faced off against a deathclaw because Jaune just let out a chuckle.  
"So many people have reacted in the exact same way. It was a pretty old Deathclaw too. I'm just glad that my arm was the only thing that it took with it as it died."

"How did you survive?" Kaitlyn hadn't heard of someone killing a deathclaw before, let alone merely surviving an old one.  
"I had some good friends with me. They helped a lot with keeping it off me so I could hit it with a mini nuke."  
Kaitlyn didn't know what to say.  
 _Oh shit. Did I tell him my name?_  
"Kaitlyn," she bluted out, slightly embarresed at forgetting. "Kaitlyn Summer."  
Jaune gave her a friendly smile that looked slightly out of place among all thise scars.  
"That is a nice name."

Kaitlyn was about to talk before a loud bang echoed through the bar.  
And in walked a large figure of pistons and armor.

-  
Jaune had heard that clanking before it had reached the door.  
When the door had opened with the assitance of a power armoured hand, Jaune replaced all the components of his arm and closed it up. A sharp tingling sensation rolled down his arm as he regained control of it as it powered up.

After the armored man had walked in, Jaune had easily seen the crest on the chest of his T-45b Power armor.

The Brotherhood of Steel.  
 _Great._

Officially, the NCR was at war with the Brotherhood but the Frontier was so badly patrolled that there were quite a few enclaves of them around.  
They were good people but the problem Jaune had with them was that they were just so... Mean.  
Jaune understood that you didn't exactly like raiders with plasma weapons but they didn't stop their technology thieving ways,or rather 'keeping technology out of the wrong hands', to justified targets.

Is that Laser rifle a family heirloom that you use regularly to protect the homestead from radscorpions? Welp, It's ours now.  
Did you repurpose a military bot to help you grow crops? We're taking it and stomping on your corn for good measure.  
Did your Grandfather leave you Power armor that his ancestor wore in the Great war? Well, it's actually the Brotherhood's and we will shoot you for stealing from us. How dare you inherit things.

Ok, most of it wasn't as bad as that last example but he had heard so many demands to give up his cybernetic arm that he had a general dislike for them at this point. The number of them that took his rejection poorly just added to the piles of broken Power Armor across the frontier. After a glance at the distracted Kaitlyn across from him, the town had probably never even seen power armor before. Jaune placed his helmet back onto his head, a powerfist to the head was just as lethal as a gun.

As the knight came closer, he placed his left arm over his pip-boy, ready to summon one of the weapons that could punch through the Brotherhood Paladin's armor. The bar was crowded so a rifle or pistol would probably result in casualties. Maybe Atrox Mors. Crocea Mors was a amazing but it was still a sword and would bounce off the armor. Atrox would probably tear through something like a T-45b.

The heavy stomps stopped right next to Jaune's table.  
"Are you The White Knight?" came a surprisingly young and nervous voice from inside the helmet. He sounded about seventeen, similar to Jaune's age.  
Jaune really didn't want to talk to the Brotherhood. Their ideals were just to different in order to have a good conversation most of the time.  
His mother used to tell him that strangers were just friends you haven't met yet.  
That was true but strangers were also assholes you never wanted to meet.

Sucking up his reluctance with a deep breath he looked towards the Armored Brotherhood.  
"Yes. Why?"  
The figure shifted from foot to foot, the pistons making the motion perfectly audible.  
"I need your help. Our Elder has gone crazy."  
Aah yes. The Elder of a Brotherhood chapter was typically the most devoted to the brotherhood's ideals. They were also the reason for the war with the NCR but you would never hear them admit that.

"What did he do? Lock up a bunker somewhere? Go on a toaster scavenger hunt?" Jaune hoped he managed to keep the derisve tone out of his voice. This guy had probably just passed initiation and he hadn't done anything wrong yet.  
Maybe he was a friend rather than an asshole.  
"He wants to detonate a nuclear bomb,"

...  
 _Shit._


	4. 3: Calm before the Storm

Just in case you guys thought this wasn't going to be a continuing story...  
Enjoy the writing!  
 _  
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx  
The most disturbing thing about watching yourself bleed to death was that you couldn't feel it. After a while, you couldn't feel anything..._

 _Jaune couldn't feel the hands pressing against his wound, desperate to try to stop it from leaking his life from him. He couldn't feel the warmth from those hands either. Through his blurring vision, he could see a light pouring onto him from an out of focus Sentry Bot, he couldn't feel it on his skin. He couldn't feel the stabs of needles into his chest by mechanical hands, trying to stifle one of the wounds that the creature had managed to give him in its deathroes._

 _More importantly, Jaune couldn't feel his arm...  
Looking towards where his left arm should have been, all he could see was two large hands from a rather large man trying to keep the blood inside Jaune's body. The once attached arm was just slightly further away, lying in a pool of red fluid. He could see the tear in the armor covering the severed arm, a completely clean cut._

 _Just beyond his severed arm, he could just make out the corpse of the creature that had torn it from him._

 _Even with his blurry vision, he could see the curved horns that had almost gored him, the teeth that had almost bit through his neck and the reptilian eyes that had promised his death. Although he couldn't exactly see them, the sight of its claws, red with his blood still moved through his mind.  
Heh, It looked like the Deathclaw was going to keep its promise after all..._

 _It was an especially large one, its skin having become as thick as kevlar and its size even dwarfing CPRL. Jaune hadn't even meant to fight it, he had been aiming to rescue the kidnapped settler in the old world building above. It had gone well until a raider had fumbled throwing a plasma grenade, sending Jaune and about twenty raiders into the expansive basement below.  
And right on top of the sleeping Deathclaw..._

 _The fight had been fast and brutal, the deathclaw significantly faster than any of its younger kin that Jaune had faced before. It had been all Jaune could do to dodge the swipes and bites while the raiders hadn't been so lucky. In the end, there had just been Jaune and the Deathclaw in an impromptu imitation of a slaughter house. It had been sheer luck that let Jaune kill the thing.  
It had been sheer luck to feel the loss of his innards and arm as it flailed in its death._

 _Despite everything, Jaune didn't feel that lucky.  
He could feel himself falling asleep despite his efforts to stay awake, knowing that if he slept then he probably wouldn't wake up again. It was hard, though, everything just felt... so... distant..._

 _As his eyes closed, he swore he saw the outline of the Deathclaw, Jaune no longer being able to see it clearly, get bigger.  
And Taller?_

 _He would have mistaken what he was seeing for a hallucination if he hadn't been in the Wasteland for the past two years. He quickly grabbed the discarded pistol next to him with his remaining, his heart hammering and possibly killing him faster. A bullet wasted is better than a life not saved after all..._

 _His vision sharpened until he could see the Deathclaw, standing with that familiar, hungry gaze in its eyes._

 _Before anyone could say anything, with a shaky aim he fired a single shot._

Jaune awoke with a start. He could feel the cold sweat on his face and the hammering of his heart. He could hear the humming of the motors in his left arm as they twitched, ready to block anything that could attack him. He could hear the creak of the car seat that he had been sleeping in as his body tensed, ready for any sudden attack.  
He couldn't see anything ready to attack him in the small confines of his car.

Jaune breathed out a sigh of relief as his body relaxed. It was just that dream again.  
 _Well, Memory would be more accurate._ He thought to himself.

It had happened about two years ago, the day that he had lost his arm. He had managed to distract it for but a second, the shot from the pistol somehow hitting its nose, and that was long enough for CPRL to reduce it to ash with gratuitous amounts of laser fire.  
The happy ending didn't matter to his mind, however, all it could focus on was the numbed terror he had felt in that moment. Jaune knew that he would never get over the feeling of bleeding out, the numbness of suddenly losing an arm or the fear that he had felt when he had seen the Deathclaw get up again, ready to kill his friends just like it had almost killed him.

The one thing that was utterly terrifying for Jaune was how ready he was to die in that moment, before the threat of his friends dying too kept him going.

 _I need to get outside_. Jaune thought to himself as he opened the car door and got out, the interior of the car feeling like it was closing in on him.

Now out in the open air, Jaune took a few grateful breaths of the cool night air as he closed the door to his car and leaned against it. He looked around the impromptu campsite as he enjoyed the cool feeling from the car door. The area that they had parked in for the night was simply another piece of open wasteland, open on all sides with no obstructions in sight. They were able to see and be seen for at least a kilometer. Conventional wisdom said that finding some shelter for the night in a building or cave was better to sleep in rather than somewhere in the open.

Unfortunately, It seemed Radscorpions had heard that bit of wisdom and grow surprisingly big underground. So after a surprise confrontation with a particularly Giant Radscorpion, Jaune had pretty much sworn off taking shelter in those dangerous holes in the ground. The same could be said for the random buildings around the frontier but instead of giant Radscorpions, it was raiders and hordes of feral ghouls.

In short, It was a lot safer to camp out in the open in the frontier because all the better places were already taken by things that didn't exactly like sharing. It didn't hurt that with CPRL's passive sensors, they would be able to find anything sneaking on them without a stealthboy or invisibility.  
Those were what the landmines were for after all...

In the dark, Jaune could only see the smouldering camp fire that they had made earlier in the night , their "guest" standing next to it and the looming shilouette of an inactive CPRL. It reassured him that he couldn't see any of the hidden machine gun turrets that the had deployed because that meant anyone sneaking up on them wouldn't see them either. Looking behind himself, into the car, he could barely see the outline of D2 who was lying inactive on the back seat of the car. Jaune gave a half smile at the sight of a large blanket covering D2's head. It seemed that he still had that problem with his optical sensors that stopped him from going into sleep mode if he could see any light. Jaune hadn't met another robot with that problem so it was probably a quirk of his Synth programming than any actual hardware fault.

Jaune sighed as he stretched. There was no way he was going to be able to go back to sleep now. Resigning himself to staying awake, he quietly made his way to the campfire, past a mumbling CPRL.  
"Kill communists... better red than dead... communism is death... Kill communists..." came the soft, almost mumbling sounds from CPRL's frame as Jaune passed. While it sounded like sleep talking, it was actually a looped sound file that CPRL had set himself to play whenever he was in an inactive state. He said it was to unnerve anyone who could get through the, frankly excessive defenses and accidentally reveal themselves. Jaune had nodded along but he would have to have been blind to not notice that CPRL would occasionally start up suddenly if the night had been especially silent.

As he arrived at the fire and started it up again with some nearby firewood, he reflected how lucky he was to meet his two friends. He had known them for only a few years but it already felt as of they were slightly more than friends. More like a family, an unusual family but a good one none the less. They could never replace his parents and seven sisters, no one could, but it felt good to know that two people cared for him so honestly in this bizarre wasteland. Some might have said that it was pathetic to consider two programmed robots as irreplaceable as family. Jaune would have called them stupid. CPRL and D2 might have been that once but he could tell something was different. How CPRL would sometimes use contractions when he spoke or how D2 could fall into introspection occasionally. It was all the little things that couldn't be programmed that just reinforced that these robots were unique, fundamentally different from the legions of defective robots that still roamed the wasteland.

As Jaune finally got the fire going again, warming him from the cold night air, he remembered how many times they had helped him through his wanderings. It helped to have such close friends, especially when he thought of Chrysta. The Wasteland had a way of introducing loss to your life, Jaune knew that better than anyone especially with what was in place of his left hand. That was why Jaune knew Chrysta was probably taking his absence the hardest out of all of his family.

Christa had always been the protective one of the family, always there for her sisters and Jaune when they were in trouble. Jaune smiled to himself as he remembered how she would react whenever someone had harassed one of his sisters. Chrysta had never admitted to being the reason that no one was brave enough to bully one of her family, but the way that she seemed to almost preen when she heard that some bully had backed off was pretty telling. Chrysta's protective instincts hadn't stopped there, however, as it was always a sure thing that she would jump to help anyone from friends to complete strangers if they needed it.

It was that protective instinct that had led Chrysta to train as a Huntress and it was what made Jaune sure that she would be taking his dissappearance the hardest.

Jaune, while having a few years of experience in the wasteland, had failed to protect people. The feeling sucked and it didn't exactly go away no matter what you did. The last thing that Chrysta had seen of him was a flash of blue and then nothing. Jaune had actually seen people like Chrysta in the Wasteland and he knew that the person that she was wouldn't stop blaming herself for stopping something that she actually couldn't control and had no way to prepare for. He knew Chrysta would blame herself for letting Jaune go on the mission, for letting herself get caught unprepared by a freak swarm of Grimm and not stopping Jaune from being thrown into a different world entirely.

In some ways, Jaune was the luckier party between him and his sister. There were no Grimm on Earth after all...  
He only hoped that she wasn't beating herself up too badly.

"Mmmm." a sound came from the presence that Jaune had been trying to ignore until now.  
Next to the now-roaring fire that Jaune was sitting at was the standing form of a bulky T-45 power armor suit. The fire illuminated its steel, gasmask shaped helmet along with the heavy armor plates that Jaune knew was protecting the lifting system beneath.  
On the armor's chest piece was a logo that was clearly illuminated by the flames.  
The Brotherhood of Steel.

Jaune hid a grimace as he gazed at the too familiar symbol. They were okay most of the time but... They tended to make an impression when they tried to mug you for your shiny arm and metal innards.

This one seemed alright, if a bit young. The Brother hadn't left his armor since he met with Jaune at Eridu but Jaune could tell from his voice that he was around eighteen or nineteen and probably was in training to be a Knight. It was probably extremely weird going to a seventeen-year-old for help with a problem when you were just a year older. It looked like that the Knight in training had decided to go to sleep standing up, a cool thing where you shut down the power armors motors and locked them in place, allowing you to relax in the armor and even go to sleep. Jaune had even heard that it was surprisingly comfortable.

"So, You still asleep?" Jaune asked the still giant.  
It was a few seconds until he got a reply.  
"Sigh. I was until a few seconds ago. Why are you up?"  
Jaune shrugged at the question, there wasn't any harm in letting him know.  
"The story behind the arm isn't exactly a happy one," Jaune wiggled the fingers of his robotic arm for emphasis. "Sometimes it keeps me up at night."  
The large armor let out a small whine as the motors unlocked and it turned towards the seated Jaune.  
"Deathclaw right? I'm guessing that it took you by surprise and it was sheer luck that you killed it and in the aftermath, you lost your arm in a lucky swipe?" The guy asked in a light tone, amusement filling his voice  
Jaune couldn't help but laugh.  
"Wow, I've never had such a traumatic event in my life summed up in less than thirty words before! I should try that more often."  
The knight-trainee laughed along too, both of them laughing into the night until they tapered off into silence.

"That was a good one. So what is the real story?"  
Jaune's silence was deafening.  
"Wait... Seriously? I thought it was just one of those stories that you heard about. People in the brotherhood said it all the time. I'm sorry for-"  
"Hey, don't worry about it. I've heard more than enough stories to know that 'A Deathclaw did it' is pretty much the oldest one in the book. So don't worry, men a lot older than you didn't believe it at first."

After that comment, the knightee fell silent after he gave a muted thanks.  
The silence was broken by the clicks of Jaune browsing through the Pipboy on his right arm, the green glow illuminating a scarred but amused face.  
"You know, I'm feeling a bit thirsty..." A flash emitted from Jaune's hand, revealing a whiskey bottle that he offered to the boy. "Want some...ummm... What is your name anyway?"  
"It's Jacob. And I don't really drink," he said as he waved off the offer of alcohol. Jaune shrugged. All the more for him.  
"So why are you actually coming to me with _your_ problem? I thought the Brotherhood hated Outsiders with shiny stuff." Jaune punctuated his question by opening and taking a massive chug from the Whiskey bottle.  
A few seconds of silence was enough for Jaune to look quizzically at the helmeted face that was staring at him.  
"What?"  
"How did you... How did you just do that? I've never seen anyone drink whiskey like that, not even the senior Paladin."  
Jaune shrugged.  
"I don't get what you mean. It's just whiskey and I need _waaaay_ more than this to even get a little tipsy." Jaune shook the whiskey bottle for emphasis, now only around three-quarters full.  
"That's... Not normal."  
"I haven't been for a long time dude."

Jaune could literally feel the tremor as Jacob took an involuntary step back.  
"You're a mutant..."  
If Jaune could have rolled his eyes harder, they would have probably fallen out of his head. How the Brotherhood expected anyone adventuring through an _irradiated_ wasteland wouldn't get a few mutations was beyond Jaune.  
"Yes, you asked a Cyborg mutant to help you. So why don't you tell the mutie what's wrong so he can figure out what to do."  
In the small silence, Jaune took another drink of whiskey.  
"I didn't..." Jacob started but then apparently thought better of it. Jaune knew that Jacob probably hadn't meant anything by it, having grown up in the Brotherhood where he wouldn't have ever seen a mutant before.  
The problem came from the people who did mean something by it and communicated their meaning with copious amounts of laser fire.  
It left a type of impression that didn't really go away.

Jacob let out a sigh as he turned to face the fire again. The fire wasn't blazing as it had been earlier but it was still strong enough to be clearly seen. The two fell into silence, the only things breaking it was the crackling of the fire and the sound of Jaune taking the occasional drink of whiskey.

"It all happened after we heard about the West Coast chapter." Jacob began, breaking the silence. "My chapter was one of those satellite chapters that were simply formed when the West Coast chapter outgrew its capacity. We weren't far from them and The Elder was on the West Coast council of Elders."  
Jacob turned away from the fire, the power armor hissing as he turned to face the night sky.  
"It was okay. Life wasn't too exciting for anyone really. That all changed when The Brotherhood pissed off the NCR."

Jaune had remembered hearing about that. It was some sort of conflict between the Brotherhood of Steel and the New California Republic which started when the NCR didn't want to live like tribals when the Brotherhood demanded that they give up all their "dangerous" technology. They then went on to have a brief war over it.  
And it was brief because there was apparently no way that a bunch of isolationists in a bunker could stand against the military of a Post-apocalyptic Kingdom.

"I heard from some of the older people that the Elder had begun to lose it there," Jacob continued. "He became obsessed with something that he thought could wipe the NCR after all. He took all the Knights with him, leaving the rest of us in a dark, unprotected bunker as we feared what would have happened if the NCR found us. He eventually came back around six days ago. He said that he had found something in an Old World Military base, something that he said was going to restore the Brotherhood's true power."  
"So that was where the nuke came in..." Jaune finished.  
Jacob nodded.  
"He decided to take the rest of the Brotherhood with him back to the base to try and get the nuke working. The Knights he brought with were good but they weren't Scribes."

Jaune nodded at that as he hummed in thought. It made sense considering how old and worn a nuke would have to be after surviving two hundred years.

"So what is he going to do?" Jaune asked. "Is he going to launch it at Shady Sands? Is he going to try to emulate what happened at Redding?"  
Jaune saw Jacob shake his head.  
"No, he is going to detonate it right there. Above fifty other nukes."  
Jaune turned completely towards Jacob, fire and whiskey forgotten.  
"What?"  
Jacob sighed but continued staring at the fire. When he continued it sounded like he was far away, every word enunciated in a level pitch.  
"When we had got there, we found out that he hadn't just found one nuke. He could only get to one. The place he found was an old nuclear missile base. Only one was armed and ready to fire when the Great War happened and the other fifty were buried under tons of rubble. So, in order to cripple the NCR, Elder Jackson has decided to detonate the Nuke in the missile base, detonating the fifty other nuclear warheads in storage in order to destroy the Frontier and stop the NCR from expanding."

Before he knew it, Jaune stood. He could feel an anger filling him.

As a kid, Jaune had always been someone to hate injustice and try to take a stand against it, that was one of the reasons he had so desperately wanted to become a Huntsman after all. It had been somewhat of a surprise when he had realized that he had been completely apathetic to the larger conflicts in the Wasteland. The years had taught him that things were a lot more complicated than good and evil and he had eventually decided that choosing one of the morally ambiguous sides in the wasteland would have moved his focus away from the people who really needed help.

Was Ceasar's Legion as bad as people said? Probably. But if he went to go fight them, then who would protect the places that the NCR had convinced itself that didn't need protection?

The Brotherhood vs The NCR was similar but much less grand in scope. People who volunteered to die for both sides fought each other and they knew that they likely would end up in a ditch somewhere. Jaune looked after innocents who never consented to dying for a nebulous cause, the farmers who were mugged for having a Protectron help plow the fields to the family that wouldn't let their daughter be abused by drunk soldiers.

He had stopped a lot of injustice that resulted from the war and he knew that it would only continue as long as the war went on. However, through all the times he had protected the people of the Frontier from the Brotherhood or NCR, none of it had been ordered by those in charge.  
Now an Elder was trying to hurt, no... Murder, hundreds of people just to spite some far away officials of a country that was far away from the Frontier. He didn't care about all the Men, Women and even Children that would be affected by detonating a nuke.  
Elder 'Jackson' thought that literally ripping apart the innocent was worth it if he could hurt the NCR.

The thought made a fire burn in Jaune's chest that was unrelated to his artificial heart.  
 _He needed to die...  
_  
Jaune stood up, surprising Jacob somewhat. Jaune didn't notice, his entire world had been upended with that one sentence about the nukes and he simply stared into the fire, a vision of what could happen to the Frontier.  
"We will move at first light," Jaune spoke, an uncharacteristic tone of seriousness in his voice. "I'm glad you found us, Jacob. Your Elder needs to be stopped. At All Costs."

Jacob had no words, no longer was a seventeen-year-old standing in front of him. Instead, it was a survivor and fighter that had saved hundreds and killed hundreds more. Someone known as a Killer and a Savior.

And when Jaune turned his head to look at him, Jacob could have sworn that the reflection of the flame hadn't left his eyes.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

To someone on the street, it was hard to imagine a situation where Pyrrha Nikos would be uncomfortable considering the cool and confident manner which she displayed to the public. To them, Pyrrha Nikos was beyond such petty things such as nervousness and being uncomfortable. How could someone as skilled as her still have normal problems?

Pyrrha Nikos herself was perfectly able to imagine such a situation.

Of course, there were few things more intimidating than sitting in silence in one of the most powerful Huntsman in the world's office.

Pyrrha looked up from her seat in front of Professor Ozpin's desk at the moving cogs on the ceiling, hoping that getting lost in their slow rotation would be preferable to the silence that had grown between her and the Professor sitting across the desk from her.

She hadn't even wanted to come to Beacon yet. Yes, she had told her family and her manager that she had been planning to study at Beacon but sitting across from the headmaster of Beacon was hardly what she wanted to enroll for.

"Don't worry," The Professor said, trying and failing to put her at ease. "Im sure she will be here soon. She takes all her duties seriously, including mentorship."  
Mentorship, that was why she was here in an awkward situation with Professor Ozpin as they waited for said mentor. It had been an idea that Pyrrha should get some personal training in being a huntress before she was enrolled in Beacon for the semester. Her mother had agreed and everything had been organized without her, the first time she had been informed of this was a literal week ago, giving her only a short time to say goodbye to the one or two friends she had and get her affairs in order. She wished she had been informed sooner, if only to avoid awkwardly sitting in a very important person's office...  
Not that she would have disagreed with the idea but it would have been nice to see to know earlier that she should prepare for meeting someone that she would be spending the next month with.

That thought thankfully distracted her from the Professor who was drinking from his mug and checking his scroll. Who was her Mentor going to be? She had heard that it was going to be a Veteran Huntress but she had no idea of who it could be.

On her way to the office, Professor Goodwitch had told her that the mentor that had been selected for her wasn't in the public eye at all as she had spent most of her career in the Vale wilderness, protecting the villages and travelers from Grimm attacks. A knot had tied itself in Pyrrha's gut when she had seen the professor's face when she had asked if her mentor had been with her team. One of the hopes she had for Beacon was to finally make friends who didn't treat her as some high and mighty champion but rather for herself. She knew that she was going to be put in a team during her years at Beacon and she hoped that they would be among her closest friends.

She couldn't even imagine losing someone as close as that and she hoped that she would be fortunate enough to not find out for a long time.

That also brought the question to her mind of what type of person her mentor was going to be. Was she going to be friendly after losing someone so dear to her? Was she going to be bitter that she couldn't protect the people she cared about? Or did she even care for her team at all?

Pyrrha's line of depressing thought was interrupted by the ding of the Office Elevator and she felt her anxiety increase as her mind when wild with all the possibilities of how her mentor would act and look like. Despite her nerves, she made herself look when the door opened.  
She was surprised at just how... _normal_ her mentor looked.

The woman who had walked out of the elevator was taller than she was at first glance with short blonde hair. As she approached Professor Ozpin's desk, Pyrrha saw that she was wearing a large, blue and unbuttoned greatcoat with what looked like armor under it which covered her entire chest with what seemed to be a large knife stuck to the front of it. she also wore what seemed to be black jeans with segmented armor pieces strapped onto it. Pyrrha's eyes widened at the weapons she had on her overcrowded belt, two silver and blue pistols larger than any she had seen before. Most Huntsman and Huntresses preferred Transformable weapons with multiple modes which tested the skill and versatility of the user. Pyrrha's own Milo had three configurations and even though it was definitely difficult to use her weapon, but the satisfaction she had felt when she had defeated her first opponent with her own _personal_ weapons had been all worth it.  
A Huntress's weapons were an extension of their very personalities and being, so what did those pistols say about the Huntress?

The Huntress arrived at Ozpin's desk and turned to face Pyrrha, giving her a smile of surprising warmth that helped put her at ease and somehow gave a glint to her eyes.  
Her eyes were brilliant blue.  
"Hello," The Huntress said to the seated teenager, her voice light and welcoming. "My name is Chrysta Arc, I'll be your mentor for the next month."  
Chrysta held out her hand to Pyrrha and, after a moment of hesitation, she took it and shook it.  
"Nice to meet you." Pyrrha hoped that her nervousness hadn't bled into her voice as she gave the woman a small smile. "My name is Pyrrha."  
Chrysta returned a genuine smile.  
"Pyrrha Nikos? I know." Chrysta said. Pyrrha's smile weakened. "I got your name when Professor Ozpin asked me to teach you. I'm sure we will get to learn about one another over the next month."  
"Wait, so you don't know who I am?" Pyrrha asked, eyes wide at the implication.  
"I'm afraid not, but don't worry as I'm sure that won't last long. I'm going to have to ask that you wait for me downstairs. I just need to talk to Old Oz about some administrative things and I'll be right down."  
Pyrrha nodded and stood up from her seat. Even though she walked at a calm and measured pace to the elevator, she could feel herself bursting with anticipation for this upcoming month, and she entered the Elevator with a genuine smile on her face.

Both Chrysta and Ozpin watched as Pyrrha left, Neither of them moving.  
When the Elevator door finally closed with a small clink, Chrysta's expression changed drastically.  
Her smile was now gone, replaced by a grimace that showed her intense displeasure for the other occupant of the room. Her eyes, once twinkling with warmth, had gone cold with fury as they stared at the sitting Professor.

Noticing the animosity towards him, Professor Ozpin only nodded.  
"I had truly wondered if you had come around..."  
"It's in two days you son of a bitch." Came the irritated voice of Chrysta.  
Instead of reacting to the young woman's hate filled stare, Ozpin decided to simply take another sip from his coffee mug.  
A slow deliberate sip that was almost definitely intended to irritate Chrysta further.

She had changed so much over the past four years. Gone was the long braided ponytail that she had used to care for, leaving only short blond hair. Her personal pistols had been improved to hold more and shoot larger Dust rounds. On her belt, lay an auto loader for her guns which allowed her to reload them rapidly.  
The most important change was that her happy and go-lucky personality was gone, replaced by something bitter and cold.  
Ozpin had seen multitudes of students change the same way and he felt pain in his heart every time.

"You are still looking for your brother," Ozpin said in a tone that left no doubt that it wasn't a question. "Like you do every year on the anniversary of his disappearance and while your persistence is admirable, I don't think it is healthy for you to keep chasing this."  
"He could still be out there, and you damn well know what day it is, what if this is the time that he is actually there?" Chrysta challenged, anger and what Ozpin thought was hope in her tone.  
"What if he isn't there? Anyone who goes missing in the wilderness is declared dead in a matter of months and he has been missing for the past four years."  
"Three years and three hundred and sixty-three days," Chrysta replied coldly.  
"Regardless, the unfortunate disappearance of your brother has dominated your life. You drifted away from your family and friends. You look for your brother every year without fail and when you graduated from my academy, you had almost immediately abandoned the teammates who were worried about you." Ozpin put down his mug, his features showing concern. Chrysta remained silent.  
"I have been Headmaster for a long time and I have seen many of my students fall down the path you are currently traveling down. It never ended well." Ozpin said as he stood up and turned to face the window, looking down at the academy below

"I'm worried for you. You have a bright future, Chrysta, and I would hate for you to waste your dream of helping people because you would spend all your energy on someone who can't be helped."

A silence grew throughout the room. It persisted to the point that Ozpin turned to look at Chrysta, who had been staring Ozpin with a blank expression.  
"No comment?" The Professor queried, "You've normally said that I was wrong or snuck out of the room by now."  
Chrysta shrugged.  
"After four years of you saying roughly the same thing, I've stopped trying to convince you. I'm just glad you skipped all the beating around the bush that you normally do. I _need_ to do this and I'll bring the kid with me if I have to. No mentorship assignment is going to stop me from looking for him so I'm sorry to say that your plan failed."  
With that, Chrysta turned and entered the elevator which had returned.

As the door closed, Ozpin spoke to himself in a low voice.  
"That may be for the best of course. Your yearly search is such a lonely affair that you could use some company and, dare I say it, a new perspective..."

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End file.
